Sunday, 17 March 2013

7drl success: 86856527

edit: please bear in mind that this was a prototype made in a week. the commercial game i have now released based on it has the same basic idea but is considerably more advanced and more clearly explained. this prototype is not intended as a demo version.

There are some issues that I don't have had time to fix yet, due to the whole seven-day thing:
- It's quite complex and I skimped on explanations so expect confusion.
- The mac version doesn't work on older versions of the operating system (this is part of Apple's planned obsolescence hellhole; the latest version of xcode won't build for older systems but I'm forced to update to it because the older ones won't build for newer systems and I've been forced to update the operating system on my ipad so UGH; basically I have to have multiple xcode versions installed and I really can't be bothered untangling this mess right now so).
- It might crash on completion. Or other times, who knows?
- It doesn't save.
- It might not be that well balanced, there's lots of costs to get right and I haven't played enough yet.

I intend to spend more time on this and release a more finished version in a few weeks.

Some explanation if you're finding it too confusing:
- Arrow keys move, moving towards an enemy attacks it.
- You pick up resources from tiles by using DATA SIPHON, which are the smiley faces you collect.
- Siphoning floor tiles gives credits or energy, which are spent to activate programs.
- Siphoning wall tiles gives programs or points.
- The red number on a wall is how many enemies will appear when you siphon it.
- Mouse-over walls/programs to see what they do.
- Click programs (on the right sidebar) to activate them.

Excellent game! I'm really impressed that this was made in seven days...I'm making my first game in Flash and it's taken me a month and a half to produce an alpha version, lol. By the way, what does .CALM do? Just wondering ^^

Oh! This is magnificent. You've expertly distilled what I like most about roguelikes: careful management of resources, lots of build options, and short, highly variable iterations.

I feel like .DEBUG is pretty critical to success where the other apps are less dependable in the long game. .BOMB exposes my cover, .WARP is unpredictable, and .PUSH doesn't help against viruses (I do love these tradeoffs). To be fair, though, .DEBUG's usefulness is contingent on map and enemy layout, so maybe it's not so versatile as I've been making it out to be. I'll have to play some more; I've only made it to level 5 so far.

I'm really glad you made this and to hear that you're continuing on with it. You have a gift for clever systems that deserves broader recognition.

I have a stack overflow/underflow problem reported. I also have a plain white screen. I do have sound, but can't see anything. Hmm, too bad, can't play it now. I am running Windows 7 on a Intel Pentium Dual CPU @ 1.80 1.80.

- The push/debug combo might be a bit overpowered in the late levels where you can push a whole swarm of enemies into the outer walls (all on top of each other) and then just debug them out of existence. Push feels too cheep in general.